Chapter 1

"Sedate her before she dilates — he wants the baby, not the mother."

Those words, cold as surgical steel, dragged me out of the fog.

My hands flew to my belly — eight months swollen, my daughter still kicking inside me.

I was strapped to a gurney. Wrists bound with padded restraints. An IV line pumped something warm into my vein.

Dr. Lydia Monroe, my husband's personal OB-GYN, stood over me holding a syringe.

Behind her, through the glass partition, I saw him.

Marcus Blackwell. My husband. Father of the child growing inside me.

He was on the phone, laughing.

Laughing.

"Marcus!" I screamed. My voice cracked against the sterile walls. "Marcus, what are you doing?"

He didn't even turn around.

Dr. Monroe pressed the syringe toward my IV port. Her hands were steady. Professional. Like she'd done this before.

"Mrs. Blackwell, please don't struggle. Premature delivery is delicate. We need you calm—"

"I'm only thirty-two weeks!" I thrashed against the restraints. "It's too early! You'll kill her!"

"The neonatal unit is prepped," Monroe said flatly. "The child will survive. Mr. Blackwell has arranged—"

"I didn't consent to this!"

The door opened. Marcus walked in, sliding his phone into his pocket. Tom Ford suit. No wrinkle. No guilt.

He looked at me the way you'd look at packaging you're about to discard.

"Ava." He said my name like it bored him. "Stop making a scene."

"You're inducing labor a month early — while I'm tied down — and I'm making a scene?"

"Serena needs the baby before Fashion Week." He checked his watch. His Patek Philippe. The one I'd bought him on our first anniversary with my entire savings. "She's already decorated the nursery."

Serena.

Serena Cole. Supermodel. His mistress. The woman who had hand-picked me from a surrogacy catalog eighteen months ago — except I hadn't known that then.

I'd thought I was his wife. I'd thought he loved me.

I'd thought this baby was ours.

"The surrogacy contract you signed—" he began.

"I never signed a surrogacy contract! I'm your WIFE!"

A flicker crossed his face. Annoyance. Not shame. Not guilt.

Annoyance.

"Ava." His voice dropped, patient, like he was explaining something to a slow child. "You signed the prenup. Clause 37-B. Any biological material produced during the marriage is classified as marital asset, subject to—"

"She's not a MARITAL ASSET! She's our daughter!"

"She's my daughter," Marcus corrected. "Genetically. Legally. The embryo was mine and Serena's. You were just the oven."

The room tilted.

No.

No, no, no.

"That's a lie," I whispered. "We conceived naturally. I remember—"

"You remember what we wanted you to remember." He nodded to Monroe. "The fertility treatments. The 'vitamins.' It was embryo implantation, Ava. Serena's eggs, my sperm. You were selected for your health profile. Your body. Nothing more."

I couldn't breathe.

Eighteen months of marriage. The courtship. The proposal at the Eiffel Tower. The way he'd held me when I saw the positive test, tears in his eyes, whispering, We made this together.

All of it. Every single moment. Engineered.

I was livestock.

Dr. Monroe moved toward my IV again.

"Don't you touch me," I snarled, and I meant it with every cell in my body.

I twisted violently, and the restraint on my left wrist — poorly fastened, a nurse's oversight — snapped free.

I ripped the IV from my arm. Blood sprayed across the white sheets.

Monroe stumbled backward.

Marcus's composure cracked. "Restrain her!"

But I was already reaching for the phone that had fallen from Monroe's coat pocket during the chaos.

My fingers, slick with blood, typed one name.

Dominic Caine.

Marcus's blood rival. The man who'd been quietly buying up Blackwell Corp stock for two years. The man who'd told me, at a charity gala six months ago, with an intensity that had made me blush: If you ever need anything — anything at all — you call me.

I'd thought he was flirting. I'd been faithful. I'd deleted his number.

But I'd memorized it.

The phone rang once.

"Dominic," I gasped. "It's Ava Blackwell. I need extraction. Now. St. Regent's Medical, east wing, surgical floor."

Two seconds of silence.

Then, his voice — low, controlled, lethally calm:

"Don't move. Twelve minutes."

The line went dead.

Marcus was staring at me, and for the first time in our marriage, I saw something real in his eyes.

Fear.